THE DUKE, who had been busy formulating plans for a police force
when the Guards had seemed on the verge of mutiny the year before,
could now devote more of his time to the decorations and furnishings
of Apsley House and Stratfield Saye. He had brought furniture with
him from Paris, pictures from Spain, objets d'art from Belgium. At
picture galleries and auction rooms he had purchased several paintings
of the Dutch school and other Old Masters. In the hall at Apsley
House stood Canova's huge nude statue of Napoleon, which, rejected
by Napoleon, had been stored in the Louvre until bought by the British
Government for 66,000 francs and presented to the Duke by the Prince Regent. In the rooms above were numerous works of art given to the
Duke as well as those bought by him and the treasures found in Joseph Bonaparte's carriage after the battle of Vitoria,* paintings, busts,
trophies, decorations, plate and porcelain, snuff boxes and field marshal's batons from every major army in Europe. There were two
diamond-mounted swords, one of them a present from the Tsar, the
other from the inhabitants of Bengal after the battle of Assaye.† There
were dessert services given by the Emperor of Austria and the Kings
of France, Prussia and Saxony, as well as the Portuguese service of
silver parcel-gilt in the Waterloo Gallery. In display cases on the ground
floor were silver-gilt table ornaments given by the City of London, by
the British army in India and by officers who had fought with the Duke
at Waterloo.
1

The Duke offered to return these treasures from the royal Spanish collection, which
included four paintings by Velasquez and a particularly fine Correggio, to the King of Spain who, 'touched by the Duke's delicacy, begged him to keep property which had
come into his hands in a manner as just as it was honourable' ( Gerald 7th Duke of Wellington
, Collected Works, 96-7).

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